Yes, I have a first draft. It’s complete – well, as complete as a first draft can be. It’s printed and sitting on the desk next to me: a pile of A4 paper that looks nothing like a novel.
I’ve learnt a lot from writing this draft. Practical things, like how to use ‘Self-Control’ (the app, not the good character trait), how to switch off to a messy house or kids’ fighting, and where to best position my computer to avoid the afternoon sun.
I also learnt a lot about the writing process, or should I say, my writing process. I preface this post by saying this is my two bobs’ worth only. I hope people find it interesting and maybe it will resonate with a few. I know there are many different writing methods and processes that work for different people and that’s exactly how it should be.
When I began my novel, I barely knew anything about writing in general, let alone writing a novel. I foraged around, attending courses, workshops, writing groups, trying out what other writers did, until I found my own pathway, what works for me.
Here’s one of the lessons I learnt along the way:
TOSS THE PLAN:
I cannot write to a ‘plan’. I know lots of writers swear by one, but I can’t do it. I’m a very organic writer. I need to get my fingers moving (even sometimes my legs) and see what comes out on the page.
I started this novel with a ‘plan’. I didn’t like it, so I revised it, and kept revising it over and over, believing I couldn’t start writing my story without knowing where I wanted it to go. In the end, I started writing anyway, even though I didn’t like my ‘plan’. What came out was something like:
‘One summer day, the family piled into the rusty truck, and bumped down the road to the river, which glistened in the sun. After they’d eaten egg sandwiches and apple cake, and drank tea, Archie went for a swim and Glenda told them all she was pregnant.’
Because I knew where I wanted the story to go, I was writing filler until I could announce the next plot development.
So, I scratched that and tried to write something original and scintillating and meaty, but still with the characters acting according to the ‘plan’. I couldn’t. When I tried to write to the ‘plan’, the story came out very contrived: the characters didn’t act how they wanted to, but according to the ‘plan’, and the plot was thin and unoriginal.
I developed literary constipation: I sat in front of the screen, straining and squeezing out tiny, hard word pellets. I put the novel to the side, and gave up. I didn’t like what I’d written, and I started to wonder why the bloody-hell was I trying to write anyway. I should have stuck to my day job.
This went on for a while, pushing and straining and squeezing, still trying to write the story according to the ‘plan’. Then I wrote something one day, anything. Whatever came into my head, I let flow onto the page. I thought it was rubbish (surprisingly, not all of it was), but I just kept writing without correcting it. I knew I wanted to say something — I wasn’t sure what –but I knew if I stayed with this scene, the answer would come.
And it did. It didn’t fit into the plan at all, but it was so much better than anything my brain could have planned.
That’s how I write. Sometimes, I write a thousand boring, crappy words before it hits me what I really want to say or what is really going on in this scene. Then I scrap the crappy words and start at the good bit. Hemingway’s advice to give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft in order to work out what it is you want to say rings true for me.
My first drafts of scenes are often embarrassing. Dialogue that goes nowhere, characters that act in clichéd ways. But I have to write the crap to get to the gold nugget below.
While writing this draft, I wrote about 35,000 words from what I thought would be the main character’s POV (point of view). I wasn’t particularly happy with them and started writing from another character’s POV. The second character took off. I liked her so much, she’s become the main protagonist. I cut my initial 35,000 words, but they weren’t wasted. Through those words I got to know this now-secondary character and she came alive to me. I know her background even though I haven’t included it in the novel, and I needed to know her in order to write the scenes that have stayed in the novel.
So, I flushed my plan away along with the shitty writing that went with it. After that, my writing, the story, and my confidence improved.
What about other writers? Do you like plans, or do you find them restrictive? I’d love to hear about how you like to write.
“The beginning presupposes the end and vice versa” Pliny or some-one said that. What is a plan? Working to a formulated structure can save many hours – you have a beginning and an end. That is a good start! If on an adventure, you start and then go where the track takes you…….discovering as you go. But how do you know you have reached the end? You have a plan, but perhaps it is not serving you well. Find a better structure that allows for the free spirit but at some stage you will need to reign it in.
This could become a lively debate, Roger! You’ve raised a number of interesting points. It’s a fact that plans work for some writers. One online course I did was all about planning, and the instructor strongly advocated making one to save time on ‘wasted’ writing. It sounds good in theory, and I tried, but it didn’t work for me. I couldn’t come up with an engaging storyline in advance. I have to write myself into a scene and immerse myself in it before I know what happens next. I also have to learn about my characters through writing about them. I can’t access the really creative part of my brain when I’m making a plan. Planning is too cerebral, too rational, and the part that creates the writing, for me, is partly conscious and partly subconscious. (And my subconscious brain is sometimes more exciting than my conscious brain!) For me, the planning comes in now that I have the first draft. Now that I know what the story is about, I can start to shape it and order it.
You also raise an interesting point: how do you know when you’ve reached the end of the story? I remember reading an interview with Khaled Hosseini about ‘The Kite Runner’. He said that in his first drafts, he kept on writing and telling the story of Hassan’s son in America. He then realised his story was really Amir’s story, and that had ended. He was telling a new story altogether, so he cut that and stopped the book where he did. Maybe, we know we’ve reached the end because a we’re aware of the traditional structure of a story: it has reached its climax and there has been resolution (good or bad), hence the story is told. It’s a good point that you’ve raised, and maybe someone else can answer it better…
Thank you so much for commenting, Roger.
Hi Louise. Congratulations on the first draft. Great stuff! Yes I write like that too, never been able to work to a plan without losing interest, and that loss of interest shows in the writing. Much more fun to discover where the writing leads. Sometimes an accidental word, or something that seems peripheral starts to take on greater importance. I think it’s a bit like putting a blot of paint on a piece of paper and then working with whatever happens, almost by accident. The problem-solving element of that is great fun.
Thanks Iris. I can’t agree more, especially about the loss of interest. I lose interest also because my plan is uninteresting! I’ve read, too, where if the writer doesn’t know where the story is going, then the reader won’t either, so it has its benefits for the reader too! The discovery is part of the fun of writing it. I had another thought as I read the comments, which seem to be mainly from females, that maybe it’s more of a female thing although I have heard of many male writers who work similarly (e.g. Stephen King). It boils down to finding what process works best for you.
Ah Louise, I think I have the 5th first draft of my novel! I started with a sentence and no idea how that sentence was going to lead on to the 70,000 plus words that I now have, at different stages of completion. Just when I thought the first few chapters were working, I found that the middle chapters have decided what I must now put in first! Some chapters get written and rewritten more than others, and I hope I’ll know when its finally finished. Trust the process, everyone says, and I know why.
Great to hear from you Rashida! Congratulations on writing 70,000 words from one sentence! I know what you mean about changes in the middle necessitating going back to the beginning. I’ve lost count of the number of revisions of the opening chapters I’ve made. It became very frustrating, and at times I wondered if I’d ever move on. I think you’ll know when your story is finished. As you say, ‘Trust the process’.
Congratulations on reaching this important milestone, Louise. Many people never make it as far as you have. I hope this is only the first of many similar milestones.
Thanks, Glen, and great to hear from you. I have similar hopes!
Oh, thank you, Louise — I was beginning to feel as though I was completely out of step with other writers with the plans and structuring. I write what comes into my head. Yes some is crap and some is good. But first drafts are the meat of our ideas. Filtering out the bad stuff is the revising. Love your description of literary constipation. I had it in the form of writing and rewriting the first chapter of my novel. Once I stopped trying to perfect the story page by page and just started to write, the characters and the story just took off. Love your blog.
Thanks, Betty, for your feedback on the blog. I’m really enjoying it. It’s taking up a lot of time and I haven’t written as much on the novel, but I’m sure I’ll settle into a routine soon. And, it’s writing, just of a different sort. By the way, when are you starting your blog?
Louise, I too agree with Betty. I loved the literary constipation reference! And the fun continues…
Thanks, ladies. I just re-read and tidied it up a little: perhaps a few too many references to shit and crap!
Louise,
I can’t write to an outline or plan either. It makes me feel confined, like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You put the border together and then fill in the bits and pieces. Sometimes my writing goes beyond the border and doesn’t fit in the constraints of a boundary. It removes my creativity.
This also applies to my revision but in a different way. Revising to fit the original story doesn’t exactly work for similar reasons but different. My ideas have changed and the story has developed more over time in my head and on paper. But the meat is there. The jigsaw is now working from the inside out!
Thanks for commenting, Lori. Love the idea of the jigsaw puzzle and tackling it from the edges in or from the inside-out! What a great metaphor and I can’t agree more. Mine, too, extended beyond the borders in all sorts of shapes and directions, and probably will again in the revision stage! That is, as Iris says, part of the fun.
I find plans very restricting.
Do you, darling? Which way works best for you? By the way, thanks for commenting on your Mum’s blog!
This is a great post Louise. I’m now updating the Facebook page for FAWWA and have shared this there.
Thanks so much! You’re my new best friend!